justsharkbait posted:

I don't think that is a system problem. It is a problem with biased, racists cops.

For me, i don't care either way as long as they are not fighting me.

So white guy can rant in back of car on way to jail and black teen can say its bullshit on the way to jail.

Neither are relevant to why they are being arrested so i don't know why it would be put in a report.

Grem posted:

Pictured here is every cop ever.

justsharkbait posted:

While based on stats it is true that it is not the most dangerous job out there, as has been stated the "hate is real".

A bad example, but one none the less, is goons. We (edit: goons) are feared, hated, etc on the internet because of ~stuff~ and ~things~ so goons stick together even more then more casual communities might, regardless of professions, walks-of-life, etc, etc.

Cops are the same way. People are hostile to us, whether we are just walking down the street, trying to eat food, etc. How many jobs do you know of where you can't eat at restaurants because the cooks had been to jail and don't like you. There is a reason why only certain restaurants have all the cops, its usually one of the few who aren't hostile to us......or waffle house b/c we can see the food being made and they like feeling safe late at night b/c stuff happens.

Whether you feel it is true or not, policing depending on where you work can actually be comparable to a mini-war zone. If you work in a big city there are areas that the police are not allowed to go because it is too dangerous for even us.

I believe that guy about being spit on and all that because it happens all the time. People are incredibly hostile to cops and its never talked about or discussed.

KernelSlanders posted:

Here's my problem with the bad apples theory: while one could plausibly argue that the two guys wielding the batons are bad apples, the guy circled is every cop ever -- standing by, doing nothing. He's the kind of person who wouldn't shoot an unarmed man lying on his stomach, but would cuff the unconscious, bleeding suspect after.

In truth, I don't blame the guy circled. I don't really blame the "bad apples" either. It allows the police force (as an institution) to absolve itself of the real fault: the training and policies under which the police operate. Increasingly these polices are set by high level law enforcement bureaucrats with minimal democratic input or accountability.


I was spit on by a cop, call it even?

I'm going to just call bullshit on the warzone that cops don't go to thing though. You're talking about neighborhoods that people live in. Not all of them die every night, and most of them don't have guns and vests. There's also social workers and postal workers who do go there as well, also without vests or guns. This country has concentration of urban poverty in no small part because of previous government policies (e.g., redlining). You may also find such places hard to work in because the otherwise law-abiding people there are terrified of you. I'm not saying there aren't really bad neighborhoods in this country, but maybe we can tone down the hyperbole a bit.

justsharkbait posted:

I don't think that is a system problem. It is a problem with biased, racists cops.

SedanChair posted:

Everyone repeat after me: ONE BAD APPLE SPOILS THE BUNCH.


Lots and lots of Americans are consciously or unconsciously biased or racist, though, and they are the pool from which police and all other employees are hired. But in the case of police, this translates directly into unequal enforcement of the law. You seem determined to frame police discretion as either a) arbitrary to comply with citation quotas (which ain't exactly good) or b) up to the officer's good judgment. Well you seem like a thoughtful guy, you probably actually have that good judgment, and I wouldn't be surprised if your numbers were less biased than average. But we can't rely on you. We have to also rely on all those police whose unconscious biases are resulting in biased enforcement. The structure of policing, including the discretion it allows to officers, isn't mitigating that--it's making it worse, because while you might not be tacking on a paraphernalia charge based on the suspect's race, the numbers show that a lot of police are, and are in no way held accountable for it.

That's the definition of a systemic problem.

Rent-A-Cop posted:

If cops actually maxed out every misdemeanor they found the legal system would loving implode. We'd all get charged with about half a dozen crimes a day, and you'd be lucky if your grandchildren were alive for your court date.

The law is routinely insane and discretion in charging is pretty much the only thing that keeps the courts even semi-functional.

justsharkbait posted:

i do agree there is a problem, and even in my college class we went over how bad the bias is. However, i don't see any system of justice that involves humans being completely unbiased at any level from cops to judges.

Humans do have biases and racist tendencies. Robots are not the answer either because someone has to program them.

Liquid Communism posted:

This is unironically a good idea. If the laws enforced as written cause the legal system to implode, then they desperately need reform, not spotty and half-assed enforcement based on how badly a particular cop's marriage is falling apart, or how much of a hard-on for loving over dumb stoner kids he has.

SedanChair posted:

Yes, so we need to lighten punishments, remove pointless legislation for victimless crimes and, sorry, give cops less discretion in enforcing a more just body of laws.

justsharkbait posted:

i do agree there is a problem, and even in my college class we went over how bad the bias is. However, i don't see any system of justice that involves humans being completely unbiased at any level from cops to judges.

Humans do have biases and racist tendencies. Robots are not the answer either because someone has to program them.

ryonguy posted:

So now we're at the "if a solution is not 100% perfect it isn't good enough, so why try to do anything ever" stage of your argument.

ryonguy posted:

Has anybody put forward the notion that the police should only exist when they are needed, their only presence being when a crime has been reported? Firemen don't cruise around looking for fires.

justsharkbait posted:

Robots are not the answer either because someone has to program them.

SedanChair posted:

Yes, so we need to lighten punishments, remove pointless legislation for victimless crimes and, sorry, give cops less discretion in enforcing a more just body of laws.

Liquid Communism posted:

This is unironically a good idea. If the laws enforced as written cause the legal system to implode, then they desperately need reform, not spotty and half-assed enforcement based on how badly a particular cop's marriage is falling apart, or how much of a hard-on for loving over dumb stoner kids he has.

JeffersonClay posted:

Does the presidential pardon power also undermine the rule of law? What about jury nullification?

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Yes there needs to be reform, but accelerationism is still dumb. There are better way to reform the system than to do a nationwide experiment in exactly how terrible you can make people's lives before they revolt.

JeffersonClay posted:

Does the presidential pardon power also undermine the rule of law? What about jury nullification?

Liquid Communism posted:

What's the counter solution?

SedanChair posted:

Fix the laws rather than casting the entire nation into a Hell Period of indeterminate length? It's not like it's any more difficult or unrealistic than what you're proposing.

SedanChair posted:

Gosh, I'm at a loss as to what laws need reforming without ushering in Thunderdome

Liquid Communism posted:

What's the counter solution?

SedanChair posted:

Gosh, I'm at a loss as to what laws need reforming without ushering in Thunderdome

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Literally every alternative that isn't "gently caress the world, let's stack the dead like cordwood."

If your plan to solve any problem starts with "Step 1: Make the problem a thousand times worse" you have a defective brain.

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Literally every alternative that isn't "gently caress the world, let's stack the dead like cordwood."

If your plan to solve any problem starts with "Step 1: Make the problem a thousand times worse" you have a defective brain.

cheese posted:

The entire point of accelerationism is that we have reached a point where meaningful reform is impossible through legal means. The overused JFK quote about violent revolution becoming inevitable when peaceful revolution becomes impossible is at its core. If you can honestly lay out a plausible theory for how we restore sanity to law enforcement (and you might as well take care of corporate/1% capture of our entire governing apparatus at the same time since the two are linked), then please elaborate. I can't think of one that doesn't involve a lot of hand waving, wishful thinking and "umm"ing.

Rent-A-Cop posted:

"Burn everything to the ground in a glorious orgy of destruction!" is a totally achievable policy goal.

litany of gulps posted:

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Ah yes, any kind of reform is obviously impossible because of 1%ers but "Burn everything to the ground in a glorious orgy of destruction!" is a totally achievable policy goal.

litany of gulps posted:

Yes, if the cops weren't busy harassing browns all over the US, we'd be stacking the dead like cordwood. It would literally be walking dead-esque, I can not imagine the horrors

quote:

What if your plan is "Step 1: Make the problem worse so that it affects more peoples lives and gets the attention of baby boomer WASPs"?

Rent-A-Cop posted:

Literally every alternative that isn't "gently caress the world, let's stack the dead like cordwood."

If your plan to solve any problem starts with "Step 1: Make the problem a thousand times worse" you have a defective brain.

Liquid Communism posted:

Again I ask, what's your counter solution? How exactly do we root out endemic corruption among so many departments that it regularly makes national news, stop openly racist and classist selective enforcement, and work towards law enforcement that people actually trust to help them rather than gently caress with them if they're bored, or below quota, or happen to hate their skin/culture/religion/economic status?

Making the problem big enough to create a public outcry for change is better than letting it accelerate on its own until we do start seeing more police being ambushed and killed just for being police.

Liquid Communism posted:

Making the problem big enough to create a public outcry for change is better than letting it accelerate on its own until we do start seeing more police being ambushed and killed just for being police.

Liquid Communism posted:

Again I ask, what's your counter solution? How exactly do we root out endemic corruption among so many departments that it regularly makes national news, stop openly racist and classist selective enforcement, and work towards law enforcement that people actually trust to help them rather than gently caress with them if they're bored, or below quota, or happen to hate their skin/culture/religion/economic status?

Rent-A-Cop posted:

I don't think it's particularly fair to demand realistic alternatives from me when your solution is to literally bury people under the weight of a broken system until the rich notice their lawns aren't getting mowed and feel obliged to usher in the utopia.

If you'd like some actual policy proposals though here are my top two:

End drug prohibition and cut the legs out from under the vast majority of organized crime in America. Drugs and drug money are the source of a huge amount of violence in the streets and corruption in the law.

Empower a federal Office of the Inspector General, give it a mandate to hunt corruption, and let it keep some portion of the funds recovered and assets seized. Watch it become the best funded federal agency inside of six months. Corruption runs rampant where honest people know it won't be prosecuted and start to ignore it as a sort of background criminality. Give those people a hammer and let them go find some nails.

Admittedly that second one is a bit unlikely. Congress would probably have a moment of true bipartisan cooperation and kill it immediately.

Rent-A-Cop posted:

I don't think it's particularly fair to demand realistic alternatives from me when your solution is to literally bury people under the weight of a broken system until the rich notice their lawns aren't getting mowed and feel obliged to usher in the utopia.

If you'd like some actual policy proposals though here are my top two:

End drug prohibition and cut the legs out from under the vast majority of organized crime in America. Drugs and drug money are the source of a huge amount of violence in the streets and corruption in the law.

Empower a federal Office of the Inspector General, give it a mandate to hunt corruption, and let it keep some portion of the funds recovered and assets seized. Watch it become the best funded federal agency inside of six months. Corruption runs rampant where honest people know it won't be prosecuted and start to ignore it as a sort of background criminality. Give those people a hammer and let them go find some nails.

Admittedly that second one is a bit unlikely. Congress would probably have a moment of true bipartisan cooperation and kill it immediately.

cheese posted:

Wait, the second one is the unlikely plan? I think some kind of special committee with a public figurehead that can run around and look busy while pretending they are addressing corruption is a lot more likely than actually ending the war on drugs. Look how long it has taken to even begin to locally decriminalize marijuana, a drug that kills fewer people than Tylenol every year and has been illegal for the better part of a century because, uhhh, Anheuser-Busch didn't want it cutting in on their profit margins? You know we are hosed when even a proposal like "stop making a safe drug illegal and sending young black men to jail by the tens of thousands for possessing a baggie of it" seems like pie in the sky.

I think the best step that could be actually implemented (aka sold to the pubic enough for poor, old rednecks in Mississippi to send their Congressman an email about it) and have a big, positive impact is mandatory audio/video recording devices as part of a LEO's kit. poo poo, sell it as a War on Terror tool to keep us SAFE and it might even fly.